opinions sought

[rrgane]

so.. i live on a boat, and the inevitable happen.. i soaked my T40. it was on at the time, and after a week still refuses to show any sign of life, so i am convinced i fried the motherboard.

it had a standard 40g drive that was corrupted (although i was able to grab some data off it), but i had upgraded the ram to 2g, and bought several used 'emergency' batteries.

what i am on the fence about is, while i loved my little T40, by todays standards it is yesterday's news. the ram was expensive and now obsolete (and in unknown condition), the LCD was good, but who knows now.. i look around and find i can get a barebones compaq/hp/acer/etc for $399, but they are cheap and plasticy, or i could spend $150-$250 on a new motherboard/cpu/drive and hope for the best.

i did get an old toughbook PIII 600, which will be the boat computer, so i can be more judicious in my use of my personal computer.

[sktn77a]

I wouldn't put any money into it. The optical drive, hard drive, wireless/modem/bluetooth/inverter cards are probably all shot too. Given that you can't test any of these without a fully working system, you may end up replacing everything before you can tell of anything is/is not working.

I'd just sell it with full disclosure to anyone who has the capabilities/equipment/parts to play with it, and then go and buy a new laptop.

[Kyocera]

I'd probably look at a T42, you can pick up a decent one for $300 - $400. Sorry to hear about your loss.

[rrgane]

thanks guys..

i figured if there was a place that would talk me into staying with and fixing my T40 it was here..

o well.. was a neat little machine!

[frankiepankie]

I don't know if you have opened up the laptop, and took out the motherboard (could have misread your topicstart). But that is what you could do:

Take out the motherboard, 'wash' it with destillated water (not with normal water, destillated water doesn't contain Calcium, otherwise your mainboard will oxidate)
And let it dry for a day of 3 or so.

It is now dead, so it can't get any worser don't you think ?

I am sorry for your T40, it are very nice machines

[SteveS]

If the PC was actually immersed in water (rather than just having some splashed on it), then it is probably not worth the effort to open it up. The optical drive is shot, the air gap in the “LCD sandwich” is contaminated, and all of the connectors will probably be intermittent. When multiple components are damaged, the cost of the sum of the parts needed to repair it will be much higher than the worth of the computer, even if purchased used.

As one poster stated, consider purchasing a used model T42 or T43. The prices have really come down on e-bay now.